"Mabel at the Wheel" is an American short film from 1914, so it is already over a century old and that makes it of course a black-and-white silent movie. It is also known as "His Daredevil Queen" and "A Hot Finish". According to IMDb, it runs for 18 minutes, but all versions I found had over 20. It says a lot about lead actress Mabel Normand's popularity if her name is featured in the title here and not the legendary Charlie Chaplin in one of his rare villain performances. He plays quite a tough cookie, disrespectful, not scared of hitting women or even abductions. And even as somebody who likes Normand a lot, I cannot deny that Chaplin is really in the center of it committing his crimes or just pulling grimaces. Still sadly I must say that it was not good enough in terms of entertainment here, even if the film occasionally enters action movie terrain. If there is any real reason to see it, then to understand how popular races back then already were as this one is apparently referencing the actually existing and very prestigious Vanderbilt Cup. I hope the cast and crew, packed with big names from back then and Walk of Famers, enjoyed the race after filming and I hope they had a better time watching there than I had watching here as this short suffers from the usual silent film struggles, most of all lack of sufficient intertitles. It is too mediocre all in all and I suggest you skip it. Thumbs down.
Review of Mabel at the Wheel
